whatever happened to those people? are they tied into this somehow? where did that story go? i have heard no reporting on it since. that is my question. thank you. host: mike in illinois, independent line. caller: good morning. four or five stories are underreported. the regulations on snap and medicare as they take off the regulation for utilities and insurance is a little shocking. could alexion interference be when the president tries a primary elected official? alexion interference be where he has a company move here with all their employees into one of the seven swing states that americans are brainwashed that

it's ok for seven states to pick our presidents? and by flying proceedings will resume on questions previously postponed. votes will be taken in the following order. ordering the previous question on house resolution 916 and adoption of house resolution 916 if ordered. the first electronic vote will be conducted as a 15-minute vote. pursuant to clause 9 of rule 20, remaining electronic votes will be conducted at five-minute recesses. pursuant to clause 8 of rule 20, the unfinished business is the vote on ordering the previous question on house resolution 916 on which the yeas and nays are ordered. the clerk will report the to it -- the title of the resolution. clip house calendar number 48, house resolution 916, providing for consideration of the bill h.r. 4312, to protect the name, image and likeness rights of student athletes and to promote

fair competition with respect to intercollegiate athletics and for other purposes. providing for conversation the bill h.r. 1005, to prohibit elementary and secondary schools from accepting funds from or entering into contracts with the government of the people's republic of china and the chinese communist party and for other purposes. providing consideration of the bill h.r. 1049, to ensure parents are aware of foreign influence in their children's schools and for other purposes. h.r. 1069, prohibiting availability for funds for secondary orelmentry schools that receive direct support from china. h.r. 2965 to require the administrator of the small business administration to ensure regulatory concern is not greater than zero and for other purposes and providings -- providing for consideration of

the bill h.r. 4305 to protect the chief council for advocacy to start a hotline for burdensome agency rules and for other purposes. the speaker pro tempore: the question is on ordering the previous question. members will record their votes by electronic device. this is a 15-minute vote. [captioning made possible by the national captioning institute, inc., in cooperation with the united states house of representatives. any use of the closed-captioned coverage of the house proceedings for political or commercial purposes is expressly prohibited by the u.s. house of representatives.]

businesses and draining household budgets. so think of this small businesses now pay nearly. $14,700. employee just to comply with federal rules. meanwhile, families lose more than $16,000 a year to hidden regulatory taxes, and that's just unacceptable. so house republicans are acting

on a are affordability agenda will move forward with the dumb red tape act and the small business regulatory reduction act act. these are real reforms to roll back washington's overreach and put power back where it belongs. the power needs to be with the workers, with the families, and with the job creators, not with the government. democrats created this affordability crisis. they buried families under regulations, spent trillions on pet projects and siphoned off american's hard earned money to appease their radical base. we're not letting that stand. house republicans are actually cleaning up biden's gimmicks. we're ending biden for inflation and restoring an america that working families can afford to trust to thrive again. thank you, jack.

thank you very much, chairwoman. this week, we're going to be running some very important legislation, particularly dealing with the communist party of china. i'm so thankful for a leadership team standing up to this. and let me tell you a little bit about what's happening in the heart of the heartland right here in iowa. look, i started off my career as a counterintelligence officer. for 20 years. i worked directly inside china. and we saw what communist china brought to the united states, not just in the buying of farmland, but literally sending agents to my district and pulling corn seed out of the ground so they could replicate it back home. but now they're not just growing or coming after what we growing our fields are coming after. we grow in our classroom. most recently, a group from des moines public schools was taking on all expense paid trip to be inside china. but the chinese weren't there. under the facade of friendship. they were there to collect information, to exploit and to manipulate. they forced these kids to hand over their digital information,

required them to use wechat and internal public server for china started an early process of cultivation in the country. espionage world. we consider this source recruitment consistently. i've had parents across iowa say, how is this allowed to happen? and the simple truth is there's no law preventing it. the chinese government is creating a series of shell organizations to recruit kids to come to china and then exploit them the moment they set down in soil inside beijing. this has to stop. i'm so proud of this team for helping us stand up to it. the politburo in beijing is trying to do to kids in des moines, iowa, and across our country. we have the opportunity not only to push back, but to send a strong signal that we have a friendship opportunity with china that is real. but we will not stand by while chinese communist agents attempt to recruit kids for future exploitation, whether it's in ag or whether it's in the classroom. we have the opportunity to say no. and this team has stood up to do

it. thank you very much, mr. speaker, for your leadership. thank you. $1 billion, that's how much money has been stolen from the hard working taxpayers in my home state of minnesota. and if that's not egregious enough, some of these taxpayer dollars have allegedly been diverted to al-shabab terrorists under the failed leadership of tim walz. minnesota has become a hotbed for fraud. we knew it was bad, but now, thanks to the work of our new u.s. attorney for minnesota, the true size and scope of the crimes is being brought to light. finally, $250 million in defeating our our our feeding our children scandal, the largest pandemic fraud case, by the way, in the country, 14 million robbed by a woman who fraudulently diagnosed somali

children with autism, then build the taxpayer for the services that were never provided. over 5 million stolen by individuals falsely claiming to provide housing assistance to those in need. these are just some of the frauds schemes that have been federally charged. and i want to emphasize that because our failed governor tried to claim that he's been prosecuting, he hasn't even investigate it. the there are even more, by the way, that are under investigation, including autism clinics that are currently under investigation. career fraud prosecutor and former acting u.s. attorney for minnesota joe thompson said the amount of fraud, quote, takes my breath away. even the new york times admitted that the fraud in minnesota is, quote, staggering in the in its scale and its brazenness. between the meals, housing and autism therapy fraud cases, 86

people have been charged. of those 86, 78 are of somali descent. let me be clear. it is not racist to call out criminal behavior. and we're going to not cower to baseless labels. while minnesotans, including law abiding somali americans, get robbed blind. well, tim paul, while tim walz refuses to take account ability for the fraud, he created an enabled president trump is committed to justice for the crimes against the taxpayers of minnesota. and i am, too. i want to thank treasury secretary scott bessant for launching an investigation into this important issue. minnesotans deserve answers and accountability. we're not going to rest until they get both. and thank god for president trump raising this because no one was covering. we've been sounding the alarm on this fraud for over three years. no one in this room and no one back at home was ripped. knowing how bad this is.

finally, because of our president raising the issue, people are talking about it. and i'd be remiss if i didn't mention before i left with our conference chair, talked about when we started. my wife, jackie and i are praying for the family of sarah bergström as they grieve this in infuriating and unfathomable, unfathomable loss. we're also praying for andrew wolf as he continues to fight for his life. these two guardsmen are heroes who answered the call to keep this city safe. justice must be executed swiftly for this heinous and targeted act. and with that, i yield. thank you, will. with. our country was shocked the day before thanksgiving to see just the senseless, violent act of this tragedy attack on our national guardsmen. do you see the west virginia

national guardsmen that were both attacked for just doing their jobs and keeping d.c. safe? i, too, want to extend my prayers and sympathy to sarah beck. trump's family for the horrible loss of her life and just senseless, senseless loss of life for such a young girl with great promise. and then, of course, andrew wolf, who is still at the hospital fighting for his life from the gunshot wounds that he suffered. and we keep him in our prayers. his family as well, and praised that he is able to recover and come back. and i know the people of west virginia share that. the people of america share those prayers. this week, we have a number of bills we're bringing to the floor to continue to address some of the problems that were created by the biden administration that drove up inflation, that drove up higher costs. we saw so many radical rules and

regulations that added costs to the products we buy or small businesses that were under attack. and so this week, we're bringing a number of bills to reduce those regulatory attacks on small businesses, giving small businesses relief also gives families relief in terms of lower costs. we're going to bring more bills that came on the education committee to take on what is happening in our universities and our schools where the communist china, the chinese communist party that tries to move confucius institutes into our schools, teaching our children, trying to try to put communist ideas into our children in our schools. and so we're going to continue to have more transparency and prohibit that kind of money coming in from china to our schools. we're bringing the score act to give some structure over the years, you've seen lawsuits erode the ability for the ncaa to even police college athletics to the point where now it's the

wild, wild west. there are no rules in place or structure. you have people that can play until they're 26 years old in college athletics. you don't have any protections for a lot of the student athletes. and so we first restore the ability for policing through the ncaa. congress won't be doing the regulations. it will be the ncaa having the ability to police college athletics again. we also protect women's sports. we protect olympic sports by ensuring that you have an equal number of women's sports to men's sports that you have a minimum number of sports. so that a lot of the olympic sports that are so important to our country as we see the olympics coming up here again, in many cases are olympians come from the college ranks. and so we protect that, too. and again, just putting structure in place for four bodies right now while gold west atmosphere. and we're going to continue to work on health care proposals to ensure that families have

choices and lower premiums, that's what republicans care about. democrats have never cared about that since they passed the affordable care act and all the broken promises and lies that went with it. if you like what you have, you can keep it. probably the most broken promise in all of politics, where millions of families lost the good health care plans that they liked because of the affordable care act. and of course, there's nothing affordable about the affordable care act. all we've seen is increased cost, 80% premium increases. democrats just concerned about bailing out insurance companies who get record profits while families see higher premiums because of that failed law. what we want to do is give families options lower premiums for families. and again, we've brought some bills to the floor already. we're going to keep bringing bills to the floor to do those two things, to lower premiums for families and give them options so that they can get what's best for their families. they don't have to be enforced into a plan that the government

tells them they have to be in. that's too expensive form and doesn't work for their family. they can buy whatever they want. that makes sense for them and for their family. so we're going to continue to work on that, too, as we move an aggressive agenda. and that agenda is led by our speaker, mike johnson. thank you, mr. leader. this leadership team, colonel nine, for being here with us this morning. there is a lot going on and we want to give you some updates on things. i hope everybody had a blessed thanksgiving. it is true that our hearts were heavy, of course, with sarah and andrew. these two selfless national guardsmen who were senselessly attacked while they volunteered for service to defend the rest of their fellow americans. and they literally took bullets for it. and so our prayers are with andrew as he recovers and our hearts and prayers are with the family of sarah. it reminds us it reminds us that freedom isn't free. and some people make the ultimate sacrifice to the rest of us can have that. you know, i was reminding our

conference this morning, 1789, our first president, george washington, was the first to issue a national day of thanksgiving in prayer, a proclamation. and he declared that because the congress requested it of him. and, of course, washington was the first and best person to do that to start the tradition. and he wrote famously in his in his proclamation, he said it is the duty of all of us. it is our duty to acknowledge the blessings of god, to be grateful for what he's done for our country and all of us, individual, and to humbly implore his protection and favor is never been more important to do than and it's a great reminder of thanksgiving is a uniquely american holiday, as we know, and it's a great time to sit around the table and be reminded of those blessings. and chief among them is the freedom that we enjoy and we do not take that for granted. so it's it's proper appropriate for us to acknowledge those sacrifices. now, there's a lot going on across the country. there's a special election in tennessee today. you may have heard tennessee's

seventh district. i spent all day there yesterday. i think it was 10 hours and 12 events. i think i was with matt van epps, our republican extraordinaire, candidate for the seat there that is open and will be filled today. and the election. he's running against someone who truly is, by any objective measure, a real radical. she famously said that she hates nashville, which is the largest city in the district, which is kind of an interesting campaign strategy. and hates country music. you know, it's tennessee. so matt van epps is an extraordinary candidate. by contrast, he is a lieutenant colonel in the tennessee army national guard. he's a combat veteran. he flew combat missions, deployed eight times over to the middle east and and dodged missiles and and bullets for his country. he worked in tennessee state government and is a highly capable, competent, calm, commonsense conservative. he's exactly what that district needs. we're excited for him. devoted husband and father, america first patriots. so i'm just. hey, if you're in tennessee seventh district, nashville and

14 counties, go vote today. it matters. special elections are strange animals and anything can happen. and when you're in a deep red district, sometimes people assume that the republican, the conservative will win. and you cannot assume that because anything can happen. so we encourage everybody to go out there and and make that happen and the people are fired up. i was i was there and really enjoyed the energy there. we're going to see that across the country next week as we go into this. this very important midterm election next year. i mean, in all the weeks ahead. and as we go into the election, remembering again how important all of this is. and as we put some posters up here to remind you and remind ourselves what an extraordinary run we've had 113th congress now, in spite of the fact that we had razor thin majority, i mean it many times, as you know, one or two vote margin, we still have had one of the most consequential congresses in the history of this extraordinary nation. and, you know, if you look at what has been accomplished for

the first ten months of this term, this year, 119 congress, this administration, and you can set that up against any congress in history. i think it's probably in the top five in terms of marquee landmark achievements and, you know, part of our both a blessing and a curse is we did so much of it in the one big beautiful bill the working families tax cut there. there's so much to talk about. it's as if it just got brushed aside. but the component pieces of that, if some of the most nation shaping productive pro-growth policies that have ever occurred to help all americans and we look forward to all the provisions of that bill being implemented, beginning really in earnest in the first part of the year. and so the first quarter, second quarter will be a very different scenario. but we're excited to to go through that. we can't we can't fix everything overnight. and the biden-harris administration, as we said so many times in four years, really destroyed almost every metric of public policy. we're don't go flip a switch to do that. it takes some time. and we've been working earnestly and around the clock to do that, to work on solutions to solve

all this problems and to make government more efficient and effective and responsive. republicans have been delivering and working to bring down costs for american families to fix the democrats broken health care system and to rid our streets of violent criminals and dangerous illegal aliens. all this has been our goal since january and we've been delivering. and as the year comes to an end, we've started to reflect upon what we've done in that. and that first in months and ultimately the first 12 months. and it's really something the working families tax cut. let me just tell you some of the components of that, because people seem to have forgotten it was a permanent extension of the 2017 tax cuts, which is a collectively, it's the biggest tax cut in us history. had we not passed the big bill, we would have had a $5 trillion tax increase on all hard working american families. as that expired in december, it was a marquee achievement. we also in that included permanent estate tax relief extensions. we had landmark medicaid

programs, forms, which the cbo has said is going to save $185 billion in reduced premium fees on everybody. further health care, we expanded the snap worker commitments to get ineligible recipients off young, able bodied men with no dependents or health problems. they shouldn't be riding the wagon and they won't anymore. in the bill, we increased border enforcement and funding generational investment in those things in its work, because guess what? the poor is sealed. we don't have all these illegals coming across the border anymore, including no tax on tips, no tax on overtime, increased standard deduction for seniors, free tax savings accounts for every child born in america, which will be announced in the white house in an event this afternoon. business tax provisions to incentivize investments and innovation. that's all in the bill and much more. we codified 67 of president trump's america first executive order. so far, and there are many more to come. we repealed biden era regulations with 23 congressional review act resolutions. now, this is important too.

we've been making history along the way over the last ten months and the entire time that crazy congressional review acts have been part of the law, only 20 had been signed into law since the inception of that that that instrument, this year alone, we have already passed 23 of those out of the house, and 16 of those have been signed into law. that's that's a big thing. we restored regular order to the appropriations process and we all know how what a big thing that was a goal of mine since i became speaker a little over two years ago, was to restore regular order, because instead of governing by an omnibus before christmas, which is no way to do stewardship, we wanted to get back to 12 separate bills. and as you saw when we reopened government, one of the things the president signed was three regular order appropriations bills signed into law. what a marquee achievement we had agriculture, legislative branch, military construction, va bill signed into law, and both chambers and the appropriators are working right now to put the next bills, get them prepared and get them enacted and signed into law.

we've also, in the last ten months, defunded wasteful spending through rescissions, billions of dollars there. we passed and signed into law the genius act, the bipartisan landmark crypto legislation we passed in signed into law the lincoln rally act, the halt fentanyl act and the take it down act and the house has passed the save act. the illegitimate court counter action act protecting american energy production act, the protection of women and girls in sports act. fix our forest act. the ticket act. unlocking our domestic lng potential act. american entrepreneurs first act stop illegal entry act made in america defense act. i could go on and on and on. remember, these are just the top lines. the passage of the house has passed 331 pieces of legislation this year that will directly improve the quality of life for millions of american families. and that's a lot to be thankful for. by the way, just this week, judgment is was mentioned earlier. president trump is signing into law the irs math and taxpayer help act. it received little fanfare in the media, but it's a bill that

will provide taxpayers fairer treatment when corresponding with the irs regarding tax returns. and that's a big thing as we go into tax season in the first quarter. it's the type of work that house republicans are doing here every day in these halls. we're working on real solutions to real problems for our constituents. as i mentioned, the working families tax code. if we were just to go through every provision of that bill that's going to make life easier and safer and more affordable for american families, we would be here until christmas. so i'm not going to do that for you, but we're not going to rest on our laurels. the american people delivered a clear mandate last fall for us to fix everything, and we're going to sprint through the finish line next november. we'll be adding a new member. i expect that van ups is going to win that election today and we will bring our freshman class of republicans up to the number of 36, adding another vote to that margin every single day. and we'll we'll keep working. we're more confident than ever that the working families tax cut provisions are implemented.

as that happens in the first quarter, second quarter american families begin to receive financial relief. republicans are not just going to hold onto the majority. we're going to grow it. and over the next weeks and months, house republicans will advance legislation to continue to bring down the cost of health care for working families to ensure our fighting force remains the monthly most lethal and the best prepared in the world, and to fully fund the government for the upcoming fiscal year in a responsible way while maintaining good stewardship of taxpayer resources. this week, as the leader mentioned, we'll pass legislation to reduce the regulatory burden on small businesses further to keep the chinese communist party out of america's classroom. that's a big and important endeavor. and to establish a landmark nationwide our framework for collegiate athletics and empower student athlete to maximize their college experience. despite the unrelenting stream of palace intrigue stories that fill the pages of your publications, house republicans remain united and focused on delivering results for our

constituents. that's how we've gotten this done. that's how we'll continue to do it. and that will be happening in earnest in the weeks and months to come. so we'll take your questions. okay. you're so eager. i got to give you a relationship at this point for thanksgiving as well. but quick question. what are your thoughts about the donald and not related to the minnesota gophers deal? what specifically what are your thoughts about president trump calling governor walz retarded? well, look, that's not not the word that i would use. i think his reaction was probably a spontaneous one to the enormous amount of fraud that was announced there. we're thinking it may be it could be $2 billion. congressman emmer, of course, represents that state. and it is an outrage and we're told that this was funding terrorist organizations in somalia. and so it's a lot to look into. i mean, all of us, when we heard the news, we reacted in different ways and, you know,

that's not the word i would choose. but i think everybody understands how absurd and crazy that is and how congress has an immediate obligation to look into it. and the administration is as well. we're going to get down to the bottom of that. governor walz appears to have a lot to answer for. so it was a really stupid thing. and the speaker, you've talked a lot about your accomplishment and one you didn't mention is the save act, which the house passed twice. it's slowing action in the senate for some reason, but many are still asking when an in-person voting day here in counted paper ballot measure will be passed and will that be done in time for the 2026 march? yeah, i've been asking that myself. i think that would be a really important measure to eliminate, you know, fraud in elections. and there is some element of fraud in every election. we all know that. and we have a duty as lawmakers to prevent as much of that is as humanly possible. the safe act has been a big priority of ours. i think i did mention in the list, but it was so long. i certainly intend to do. it's an important measure and we

would certainly love to get that signed into law. we need a little help in the senate, of course, to do that. we don't have control over all elections. the states in our system, as you know, have a lot of responsibility over that. and that is federalism that we support that the states have that in their their juristic action of authority. we don't want to federalize all elections because that could open up a whole other can of worms. but with regard to federal elections, at least, you know, elections for congress and senate, we do have some say. and so the safe act would be an effort to ensure that we eliminate as much fraud as possible, have obviously been a big champion. i was a coauthor of it before i became speaker. we've been working on this and the tempore: on this vote the yeas are 210 and the nays are 205. the previous question is ordered. the question is on adoption of the resolution. those in favor say aye. those opposed, no. in the opinion of the chair, the

ayes have it. the gentleman is recognized. mr. mcgovern: i ask for a recorded vote. the speaker pro tempore: a recorded vote has been requested. those favoring a recorded vote will rise. a sufficient number having arisen, a recorded vote is ordered. members will record their votes by electronic device. this is a five-minute vote. [captioning made possible by the national captioning institute, inc., in cooperation with the united states house of representatives. any use of the closed-captioned coverage of the house proceedings for political or commercial purposes is expressly prohibited by the u.s. house of representatives.] are 210 and the nays are two. talk to those chairmen and at

times got in late last night, but apparently those for the two chairs and the two rankers in both chambers did not agree. and so that provision was dropped out of the ndaa. it doesn't mean it can't become law or even that that is a final decision. but i sent my friend elise a text last night and i said, can you find out what the issue was? and i'll help you resolve it. i support her provision. i mean, i would vote for it. i think it's smart and i'm not sure exactly why it wasn't included. so i don't know why she's frustrated with me. i literally had nothing to do with it, but i'm happy to the role of my sleeves and help her. i want i want i want everybody to be successful and we're going to try to make the best people, experts on the caribbean vote strikes. the administration has acknowledged that there was a second strike in that attack in september, but they have not said if there were any defenseless survivors. should they release the video to congress, the unedited video to congress and to the american public, and to give the defense defensive survivors were killed? would that constitute a violation, the laws of war? i'm not going to prejudge any of

that. as you know, both of the armed services committee in the senate, in the house, will be having hearings on this to review. and that's that's their role. i have been listening again. i was pretty busy yesterday. i didn't follow the news, but i caught up a little bit early, early this morning, that my assessment of this my understanding is that most of the people that have looked at this, at least in a preliminary review, say that the admiral who ordered the second strike was thought it was necessary to complete the mission. he's a highly decorated, highly respected admiral in in the navy. and he made that call. and so, you know, we're going to look at that. i'm sure congress has a right to look at it. i don't know how much of the tape should be released because i'm not sure how much is sensitive with regard to national security and all that. i haven't had a chance to review it, so i'm not going to prejudge it, but i will say that, you know, it's not a an unprecedented thing. one of the things that i was reminded of this morning is that under barack obama, president obama, he he had i think there were 550 drone strikes on people

who were targeted as enemies of the country. and nobody ever questioned it. okay. and second, secondary strikes are not unusual. it it it has to happen if a mission is going to be completed. so i haven't reviewed the scope of the mission. i haven't reviewed that particular strike. i don't know what went into the admiral's decision matrix, but it's something congress will look at and we'll do that in the regular process in order. i think it's very important for everybody to reserve judgment and not leap to conclusions until you have all the facts. and that's what will be uncovered. yes, if i testify. thank you, mr. speaker. the question is a little bit self-serving. it's giving tuesday. and so just asking everyone to consider, perhaps the television among the many worthy here. yes, there's a plea to give the public television for giving tuesday and then on health care, two of your members came out of the meeting just now and told me that it was their impression that the house republicans are likely to get on board some kind of short term extension for the

subsidies while you work out long term reforms. if they weren't members who love that idea. but they said it looks like that might be necessary. where do you think things stand? and could something come before the house by the end of the year? i don't know who you talk to, but they might've left early. i was up there for quite a bit today. we were talking about a lot of issues and what i said we didn't commit to that. what i said is when you have this is just practical, okay? when you have a razor thin majority, which we have this is not like the old days. you know, in the old days they had 30, 40 seat majorities. and so for leaders to go in the back room, create the agenda and hoisted upon everybody and say, this is what you're doing, and if 20 or 25 people disagreed, he said, so what? go jump in the potomac. we're moving forward. it doesn't work that way. right? it went in an era of small margins and i literally have to get almost every person in the room on board. now, health care is a very complex issue, and i don't want to point this out. look, it is not the republicans who broke american health care. next week we'll go into this in real detail and i'll show you the whole timeline. the democrats broke health care,

okay, when they created the affordable care act 15 years ago. they promised you that everybody could keep your plan, keep your doctor if you want it, and that your premiums would be reduced on average by 20 $500. exactly the opposite was the truth. and premiums have risen in some cases 60, 80% over that time. they broke the system and every time the democrats have gone in to to try to subsidize the broken system, they spent more and more taxpayer dollars and they've been wasted. the covid era subsidy only affects 7% of americans. okay. all this hullabaloo is over 7%. now. every. american, 100% of americans need their health care costs come down. republicans have ideas to do that. now, what i've got to do is build consensus deliberately around the best ideas, and we've been working on that. the majority leader has been quarterbacking this effort with the chairman of the committees of jurisdiction, with the docs caucus and with individual members who this is their passion and they really spent a lot of time thinking and working on it. and we're pulling those ideas together and there will be a

republican response to this. okay. so i can't project in advance what that will be because i don't know what the consensus is in that room. but you will see our sleeves rolled up and that work being done in earnest this week as we bring all that together. i told everybody we are going to respond. we understand the need of bringing down health care costs and at the same time raising access to care and quality of care. the republican party is the party that can do that. the democrats have demonstrated for 15 years they broke the system and they keep doubling down on the broken system. okay. hey, guess what? if you love your obamacare, you'll get to keep it. okay, we're going to improve the system for americans. we have good ideas to do it. we have a lot of thoughtful people working on this and we'll be pulling it together. so, no, the answer is no. i did not project any outcome of this. this morning. we were talking about the various ideas and we're working right now. people are very passionate about this and they should be because their constituents understand the necessity of it. so we'll keep doing that. thank you all so much. and more later today with the

wrestling. the tigers, the cancer society, they actually work on the public. some always get diagnosed, some medicine, lots to take. good morning. hope everyone had a happy thanksgiving. before we begin, i want to say that our hearts are with the family of national guard specialist sarah beckstrom, who was tragically murdered last week here in the district house democrats honoring her memory and continue to pray for the recovery of staff sergeant andrew wolf. this tragedy should never have happened and will continue to support the investigation on this deeply troubled individual and how they were able to carry out this horrific attack. now, we'd like to talk about the affordable kitty crisis that is plaguing hard working families. and americans are all over this country. this past week, americans experience this sticker shock as they went to their thanksgiving dinners, as they went to the

grocery store and as they decided to get a jump on buying christmas presents. in every town, every community, every rural community, the cost of living continues to become more difficult for families to bear. from groceries to clothing to rent and utilities, americans are seeing these expenses go up with no relief in sight. and not only is there no relief in sight, there's no agenda from house republicans on how to address this. donald trump promised to lower costs on his first day in office. this was one of the many broken promises from this president. the republican economic policies have only made this worse on top of the cost of living crisis. americans are on the brink of losing access to quality and affordable health care. if republicans allow the affordable tax credits, affordable care tax credits to

expire, there is no time to waste. we have a discharge petition that is active, that has democratic support. that is the only path to deliver the health care certainty and stability that americans need. we heard during the shutdown from dozens of republicans who gave public statements saying that they supported the affordable care act tax credits to their constituents. this is their opportunity to make that right. this is their opportunity to stand up for health care, to stand up for their constituents, and to stand up to speaker johnson and donald trump who are willing to let these tax credits expire to hurt the american people. this is the only real solution. and republicans should take it before it's too late. now turn it over to vice chair ted lieu. thank you, chairman aguilar. i also want to add my sincere condolences to the family of

sarah backstrom, the national guard soldier, senseless killed last week. and i also pray that andrew wolf, the other national guard soldier fighting for his life, pulls through as chair. magyar has said, we have an affordability crisis. that's one reason donald trump is polling at a lowest level ever for a modern day president. at this point in our term, only 36% approval. over 60% disapproval. and for folks who shop on black friday, last friday, according to salesforce, average prices across all products increased 7%. and that's specifically for household goods prices increased 24%. things like furniture, appliances, dining and décor all skyrocketed. and what is donald trump doing? he wants to make sure his great gatsby ballroom is as big as it can be. trump and his rubber stamp republicans are not focusing on the affordability crisis, and now we have health care costs

skyrocketing. and if we don't extend aca tax credits, it's going to mean that millions of americans are either going to lose health insurance or pay a lot more for the health care premiums. now, i'd like to talk about war crimes. last week, secretary seth lied and denied media reports that the u.s. military ordered a second strike on defenseless ships survivors. then yesterday, both the white house and heck, seth said actually it was more bradlee who ordered the second strike. i served on active duty as a jag for four years and then an additional 21 years in the reserves. and let me be very clear. killing shipwreck survivors is a war crime. the pentagon's own department defense law manual on the law of war literally says that, quote, orders to fire upon the shipwrecked would be clearly illegal. the department of justice must

conduct an investigation into the war crime and hold all accountable, including secretary hicks, if he allegedly said kill them all. if the trump administration does not hold the people accountable, i guarantee you a future administration will do so because there is no statute of limitations for war crimes. and i have a message for the members states military. thank you for your service to our great nation and for those of us who served. we know that we all followed a code of conduct and part of that code of conduct is to not lie. and to accept responsibility. fortunately, the head of the department, defense secretary seth, engage in this. i will conduct. he stayed on national tv. quote i watched it live. we knew exactly who was in that boat and instead of accepting responsibility, what happened? hexa chose to throw admiral bradley under the bus.

shame on pete hegseth. he is a coward. he must resign. you deserve better. questions, michael. thank you, mr. and you and the vice chair have spoken about affordability this morning. i'm sure the message you heard from your constituents, what you were back home last week at the white house after some of the black friday numbers came out, that the record black friday spending is an indication that some of the affordability firing that you all have sounded a little bit hyperbolic or a little bit, you know, kind of overblown. what's your reaction to the white house? you know, kevin has said, look, on the sunday shows this weekend, what's your message to the white house who think, you know, look at the consumer spending numbers, look at how americans are continuing to to spend money. and that's an indicator that, again, some of what immigrants saying, you know, is kind of, you know, overblown and people

waiting in line to get a deal doesn't necessarily mean we have a soaring and roaring economy. i mean, people are looking for a deal. and so the only way we truly know what the economy looks like is look, our members of congress are out in our districts. we're out in our community. we see it. we to our friends and neighbors and we hear from them the affordability crisis that they're in. and we hear direct stories from them on their health care premiums is doubling and getting notices and having to think about whether they're going to go without health care for the next year. if these premium increases stay, that's what what we hear. so but look, in communities all across the country, people, you know, black friday is a tradition to to go wait in line and to try to get you know, a deal to try to get ahead on the christmas shopping.

but, you know, kevin hassett is in the white house just continuing to, you know, perpetuate lies. if they use one anecdote as a as a reason to to call for a good economy. one of the things that they can do and that they can control, though, is they can produce real data. they can fund the bureau of labor statistics. they can fund agencies that give us good data. so we have an understanding of what is happening with the economy. they don't want to do that because they know that the tariffs that they've imposed on americans are crushing people and they know that those costs are thousands of dollars that people will face this holiday season as a result of trump's reckless. economic policies. i find it really funny republicans are making that

argument. black friday signing records. the reason i set records is because prices increased. that's why because people are paying more and getting less. and that's why we see consumer sentiment surveys. that shows that consumer sentiment has been rapidly dropping. polo polls after polls show that american people know that affordability is a crisis and they want trump. republicans to do something about it instead of focus on stupid things. you know, we'll get to taylor, but just one last point. none of the bills, michael. it's a fair question. none of what we're we're seeing on the house floor, you know, comes back addressing, you know, this issue. if republicans were so confident that the economy is in the right place, that the american people feel good. you know, they talk in their morning meetings about wanting to address the affordability crisis. they have an opportunity every week here to put up meaningful bills that address that. we don't have that this week. we haven't had that in months. and their only solution is to do whatever the president asked them to do. thanks, mr. chairman. a question for both you and

maybe lucas discussed the secretary in your opening statement, but his impeachment for the defense secretary, that's something that should be on the table. and the u.s. essentially support that right now, especially if the facts regarding this alleged fall on strike on the shipwreck are borne out. yeah, let's not let's not draw the conclusion before we hear the evidence. i appreciate that both senate majority and minority members as well as house armed services members, chairman rogers and member smith indicated that they want a full accountability to what's happening in business in venezuela, especially with the strike. as the vice chair mentioned. that's where this should start. look, republicans are not going to are not going to impeach pete hegseth. we feel he should resign the. vice chair said that multiple times from this podium.

i've said he's the most unqualified secretary of defense that we've ever had in this country. so that's how we personally feel. but when it comes to the evidence and, the accountability and the oversight, let's go through that process. but members of the military in need to tell the truth, as the vice chair said, and we need a full accounting of what happened on that day with that strike in and whether there were crimes that were committed. i agree with chairman aguilar that we need a full accounting to get all the facts first, but we already do know that secretary heck's that lied as that sean parnell at the department defense. he also lied. they denied the media reports last week. and then just yesterday, the white house and heck set himself confirmed. yeah, second strike was ordered and then they threw admiral bradby under the bus. that's what happened. there was the cbs hour. when it comes to the expiration

of the expanded aca subsidies, how much are you constrained by what can get 60 votes in the senate? and are you willing to compromise at all on the democratic petition in order to get a handful of house republicans on board that you would need to successfully move a discharge condition? republicans have said that they want an extension, that they support the affordable care act tax credits. we're giving them an opportunity to do that. that's what this discharge petition is about, is leader jeffries has said for months democrats will go anywhere and have any discussion with our republican colleagues about addressing the affordable care act, tax credits or the affordability crisis. if republicans want to have a conversation about about solutions, we're all ears. what we're saying is we have a solution. we have a solution with more than 200 supporters. you know, work with us and let's and let's address this. but right now, the republican conference is in chaos.

they haven't had a health care strategy ever. so we're not just going to sit around and wait for them to come up with one year, three year health savings account, all these things that they don't have consensus among themselves. they're in disarray and disagree with their own leadership on this. and it appears that donald trump might even disagree with them because before the holiday he was willing to engage on this, reportedly. so what we're saying is we have a solution, we have a vehicle, we have an opportunity. let's take this step and then we can have a conversation about what goes on in the senate. i'm not a senate expert, and so we're not pretending to be we're trying to pass legislation out of this chamber, hoping the congressman, fitzpatrick's framework, the details are released in the next week or so. but we're open to solutions that deliver support for the american people. we have a viable solution with the 200 supporters plus if if if

any member of the republican party has a solution, 200 supporters, we're willing to have a conversation. thank you. building on that question, would you guys consider doing a separate discharge petition on a bipartisan basis for a different you know, proposal? look, this is the vehicle that has 200 supporters. if there are people that show that they have, you know, 200 supporters on a piece of legislation, we're happy to engage in and to talk. but what we're saying is this three year solution is the easiest, the cleanest, the most viable to move forward. where we are now, we understand how to count votes. katherine clark is great at that. and so we're going continue to follow the guidance of of our members. but we want real solutions. we don't want talking points and working groups, so we want real solutions to the american people. the clock is ticking. december, the end of december is coming quickly and people deserve relief. so that's what our proposal is

focused on, delivering and leading up to that. so are you open to a two year extension as opposed to a three year with reforms, which is what suozzi and fitzpatrick seem to be talking about right now? if they can show you that it can pass the senate and get signed, what we're saying is there's, you know, 200 plus democrats on on this discharge petition. if republicans want to work with us on this, if they want to deliver for the american people, they have a real opportunity to do it. but don't just, you know, join a working group and and put a press release out to your constituents saying you're willing to engage, like in a sign a discharge petition force, a vote. we're willing to have conversations with anybody any time, anywhere on the affordability crisis and specifically these tax credits. but they have had plenty of time. they have known that these tax credits were going to expire four years and they chose to do nothing about it, including congressman fitzpatrick, when he

supported the big, ugly law. and so, you know, republicans have known that this crisis was coming. they chose to do nothing about it. so if they're truly serious about this, we have a proposal. we have a solution. let's take that step and then we can have conversations about what can be passed into law. but it's clear that the president is even, you know, open to this before speaker johnson got a hold of him. thank you so much. and

news conference from earlier. thank you, mr. speaker. it's december second. the year is almost over. we're now only a few weeks away from new health insurance premiums. sky rocketing people's bills are going to double, triple and in some cases quadruple. and so you'd think would be here on the floor today addressing that. right. you would think but you would be wrong because we have on the

floor this week another embarrassingly pointless and irrelevant collection of bills that do nothing to help everyday people. you know what democrats first raised the alarm about health care premiums skyrocketing earlier this year. speaker mike and speaker mike johnson said, oh, don't worry, this is a policy debate for december and here we are in december and republicans are doing nothing. zero, actually, they're doing less than nothing. they took an eight week taxpayer funded vacation while people panicked about how they're going to afford their insurance premiums starting january 1st. families are going to see their bills go up and up and up, and in some cases by nearly a thousand more dollars a month. now, maybe that doesn't sound like a lot of money to republicans, because these guys might not get how much that means to regular people. i know how out of touch they are, but they're building a fancy new ballroom at the white

house with their billionaire donors. that's where attention is. they eat caviar and they drink fine wine at mar a lago while regular people suffer. and maybe they don't. maybe they don't understand how much $1,000 a month is to the people i represent. but guess what? it is a lot for most hardworking people. this is a catastrophic amount of money that suddenly needs to be added to a monthly budget. it's more what a lot of people earn during a week of work and republicans have known that this crisis. was coming for some time, yet they still have no plan on health care. they say they have one, but where the hell is it? we're still waiting. their only answer so far is good luck, folks. hope you like choosing between health insurance and food. and here's the kicker, mr. speaker. if this house voted today to stop premiums from exploding, it would pass. it would pass easily.

democrats would vote for it. and i know is a chunk of republicans that would vote for it as well. but the republican leadership will not bring it up because care more about tax breaks for billionaires than tax credits for working families. it is that. now, don't even get me about the bills republicans are bringing to the floor this week. two bills for small businesses. sounds good, right? you know, you know what their bills do. one of them creates a hotline that already exists. wow. ground breaking. and neither of them do anything about the number one issue that i hear from small businesses, and that is tariffs. every small business owner i talked to says the same thing. the tariffs are killing them. the tariffs are making prices skyrocket. the tariffs are slowing down. business. but these guys don't care. they don't care. they just go along to get along. they don't want to tick trump off. i guess my question is, if republicans want to help small businesses, why are they

blocking a vote to overturn the tariffs? why have they refused to let congress vote on the tariffs for months and months, even though it's our responsibility? what's up that. after all, it's our responsibility. it is our job. and are they afraid that if it comes to the floor for a vote that they will lose? and then we got a bunch of bills about protect ing public schools. give me a break. give me a break. my sister is a public school teachers. i talked to of students all the time. you know what they tell me? reduce size. support teachers. make schools safer. fund. but these guys are bringing up a bill about foreign infiltration in third grade math class. i mean, are you kidding me? is that a joke? they're so concerned about china funding our schools. well, here's a novel idea. why don't we have america fund our schools?

why is it funding our schools a bigger priority in this congress? these are these are crazy idea from my republican friends. you know, if you really care about public education. you know, let's be wind at the backs of our teachers and our schools. and of course, they have a bill to help the ncaa take advantage of student athletes because, you know what? this congress desperately needed was another billionaire organization in power to squeeze young people more of the same. more of the same. they give more to those with the most while taking away from those with the least. it is sick. it is sick. it is immoral. it represents the opposite of what i believe. we are here to do, which is to help people, to help people. but that is their entire governing philosophy. republicans want to use the power to reward the billionaires and special interests donors. they want an economy. those at the top get showered in

tax break after tax break. well, working people get left further and further behind. there's the speaker. it is shameful. it is shameful that this is what we are doing this week. it is shameful and it is outrageous and it is wrong. and i urge every member of this body to vote no on this republican rule. and i reserve gentlemen, reserves. gentleman from virginia is recognized. mr. speaker, isn't it amazing that we come here to talk about these six bills and a significant portion of the debate from the other side of the aisle deals with bills that we're not addressing. and they talk about some of those and they then make allegations, mr. speaker, that are just not accurate. i remember here in the callers just a second ago, a phrase, well, what are they doing to help small business? how soon we forget, mr. speaker, that just last summer we passed the working families tax cuts bill with lots of help for

people on main street in abingdon, virginia, in marion, virginia, in every small town i represent in the ninth congressional district. those businesses are benefit ing from what we did because we made major adjustments. actually, what we did was we kept everything that we already had that was going to expire for taxes would have burdened our small businesses and made it more expensive for them to compete against the big companies. now, it's true the big companies get some of these tax cuts to. but mr. speaker, the people who really need them are the small businesses, the people who need those breaks are the mom and pop shops, the people who need those breaks are the my son, who's 18, is now getting tips. he's he's working tables at mac and bob's restaurant and he's getting tips. guess. he won't have to pay income

taxes on that now. maybe he's at a point where his money wouldn't be high enough that he'd pay those taxes anyway. but for those families who rely on that tip money as a part of their income, that's a huge benefit to the american families. so i find it surprising that my colleagues on the other side of the aisle want to focus on saying that we're not helping small business when every single small business person in the united states knows that we've been fighting for them, knows that we've been helping them, and knows that while these bills today in this rule, that's all we're, mr. speaker, is a rule on six bills. and the bills that relate to small businesses that we're doing today will help a little bit. but to challenge us and say, what are we doing to help small business after we did a huge benefit on a number of different issues for small businesses, for mom and pops, for people out there working, whether they're working overtime jobs, they're able to take a tax credit for

that as well, whether they're doing tips or whether they're just trying to buy some new equipment and want to be able to write that off in the first year instead of having to amortize it over a number of years as used to be the law and is what my colleagues on the other side advocated for last summer, that they start paying that again so that they can't take that that write off that hurt small business. so i ask you, mr. speaker, just to consider that my colleagues on the other side of the aisle really don't understand small business or they wouldn't make such a comment. and with that, i reserve the remainder of my that gentleman reserves. the gentleman from massachusetts recognized. yeah. well, let me just say that as the son of small business owners, i don't think the gentleman knows what he's talking about. this is outrageous. i have the bills that we're considering here today. and the reason why i'm not spending much time talking about them is because they suck. they're awful. i was pathetic. one creates a hotline that already exists.

you go you go online and call the hotline. you just restated. that's what we're doing here. nothing about the tariffs that is screwing over small businesses, nothing about the realities that small businesses are dealing with each and every day. you come up with these these bills that are meaningless, that do nothing for anybody. you know, and i'm sorry that my republican friends don't want to talk about the health care crisis, but because of republic can inaction. millions and millions of people are going to see their health care bills skyrocket and millions are going to probably go without health care. and we've been warning my friends about this for a months. and the republican is have done nothing, not a -- thing. i don't know how you go home and face your constituents who are about to get screwed over with high health care premiums and bills and, you know, and say, oh, yeah, i know, i get it. i mean, people are going to lose their health care. you had you've been in charge

year and you've done zero. nothing. not a -- thing. you know, so these bills that would talk about today, i mean, i would encourage anybody who's viewing this on c-span to google them to look them up. it's pathetic. it's pathetic that this is what we're wasting our time doing. and there's so much at stake. and we got two weeks left to address the health care crisis. and my republican friends have nothing, nothing to talk about that today. yeah, i mean, the hotline already exists, by the way. you go. on you go. you can google it. so you you you recreate. you're basically establish a hotline that already exists. boy, that's helping small businesses. yeah. they the have that's that's not a big problem. my friend's big problem is the high cost health care and these tariffs which are just you know basically putting many of our businesses out of business. and so you come here, my

friends, come here and defend this garbage that we're doing it is pathetic. it's pathetic. mr. speaker, i want to yield 2 minutes. the gentlewoman from ohio, ms. sykes. gentleman yield. gentlewoman is recognized for 2 minutes. thank you, mr. speaker. today i rise in opposition of the rule in h.r. 431 to the score act. this the legislation fails to address the rights of students to advocate for themselves. and that's why i introduced an amendment to allow for students to collectively bargain. as a former gymnast and athlete my allegiance will always be with athletes and with the underdog. it is undeniable that our student athletes are not receiving equitable compensation for their labor. especially those in high revenue sports. a student athlete constantly endangers themselves and risk great harm to their bodies for the entire entertainment of the masses, all while juggling classes, practice and potentially a part time job just to survive their natural talents. allow for universities to recruit on and off the field,

raise money all while the actual revenue generators are left in the cold. this issue is already addressed in the courts and one thing that remains clear is the ncaa has been profiting off of college students. labor and the students have not for decades. students have not been paid for their participation. and what is clearly $1,000,000,000 industry? and this is not right. currently the score act has not laid out an equitable revenue sharing model and leaves it wholly up to the interpretation of the school. further passing the score act as it stands would only eliminate students abilities to collectively bargain. that's why i introduced an amendment in the rules committee to strike the language in the bill and allow students to be properly compensated for their labor. i thank my colleagues on the democratic side for offering the amendment, but unfortunately the amendment failed on party line rules and was rejected by the republicans. without my amendment. players at schools in my district, basketball players, and specifically would not have the means of recourse to negotiate compensation and would be forced to simply shut up and

dribble. i understand that the needs of a victim school are different than those than the mac or the swac, and without the ability to collect a plea bargain, these athletes cannot negotiate with the university for their specific needs, no matter the size of the program. for those reasons and more, i am an opposition into the rule and the bill, and i encourage my colleagues to get back to the drawing board and do something that actually works for athletes and allows them to be paid equitably, equitably and fairly and collectively bargain. thank you, mr. speaker. are you going to let yields, gentlemen, from us just. i reserve you reserve gentleman recognized. thank you, mr. speaker. i appreciate that. some of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle may have been involved in small businesses, as i was, to not just family, but i ran a small business for many, many years. people may not consider a solo practitioner of law, small business, but i tell you, when you have to pay the light bill and you have to pay the the

salaries your small business. further, i've also been involved in many years in a swimming pool that some years makes money. but most may show a little bit of a profit, but it's there mainly because we want it to be a community pool. but it is a corporation that makes money occasionally, even if only on paper and that corporation has to buy equipment. shockingly, you need new cake boards, you need diving boards, you need new swim blocks and what we did last summer helps all of those small businesses and every one of them knows it. so to say that we haven't done anything on that is really a misnomer and a mistake. i will tell you that it is true that the bill, the score act, does not solve all the ills that some may see out there, but it is a step in the right direction. that's why in my opening, i said that this was a first step, but not the last in trying to solve problems that we have in our

college athletics and it's true that the big sports make lots money, but the gymnasts of the world and the swimmers of the world, they don't bring in a lot of revenue. and i can assure you, mr. speaker, that when i would be swimming in the pool, even in my prime, it was never consider mass appeal, entertainment. it nobody would pay to watch our swimming meets now. we had a good time swimming for emory in henry college and our university. but you know, it was not bringing in great revenues to the college and that's why this bill says that some of those revenues have to be spent. if you're going to be doing this, some of those revenues to be spent to keep other sports going as well. we're trying to make sure that there's some recognition of the olympic sports. we're trying to make sure that there's recognition of other sports. that also means women's sports, that you've got to have some abilities to take some of the money that you make off revenues, sports, as they're called, and use them for the

other sports. now, if we want to continue with wild, wild west is my friend does bill rock is likes to say then we do nothing and we defeat this rule. we do nothing. and it will continue to be a crazy arena out there where students aren't looked at, and particularly if you're not the top bill student on the football team or on the basketball team. but you're a student athlete in any other way, you're getting harmed by what's starting to happen and what is happening in our and our larger universities where everything is going to pay, you know, the top name athlete to come to your school next year. this starts us down that path. is it a perfect bill? i will not claim that the rule makes it so that we get this first step moving down the pathway to try to resolve some of these issues. and i fully expect that we will have bills in the future that will deal with some of the other issues. we will find that when we do this, that we probably have

solved some problems and we'll discover additional problems. sometimes when you get an answer to a question, it raises more questions. that's what this bill is supposed to do. it's supposed to start us down the path. and if we find that there are other issues that congress needs to step in and deal with, then we can do so. we are not limited to taking action in only december. of 2025. that's why we have a legislature this body that will consider does this bill do i submit to you, mr. speaker, the score act does good. does it do perfect? no. does it solve everything that everybody might think of? no. does it solve problems we have yet to think of? no. but is a good start in an area where there is no guidance currently and where the ncaa has lost control of our college athletics completely and where it is in fact a wild, wild west

where the vast majority of students, i submit, who are student athletes are being hurt and left behind. we're trying to rectify it to create a balance so to speak, and that's why, as a first step on this first step, bill, we need to pass the rule. and i have reserved the remainder of my time. gentlemen, reserves, gentlemen from massachusetts recognized. mr. speaker. you know, the gentleman wants to talk about the rule. so let's talk about the rule. what is frustrating to me and i you i think many of us, not just democrats, but a good chunk of republicans are at the end of our rope. the republican leadership. you know, is running this house like an authoritarian dictatorship. it's their way or the highway. you know, there are six bills that are allowed to be

considered in this rule. six. every single one of them is completely closed. what does that mean? right. it means nobody can offer any amendments. democrats can offer amendments. republicans can't offer amendments. they didn't ask for people to submit amendments. right. and they like to say, oh, nobody offer amendments. yeah, people did offer amendments. the jama talks about the score act, right? i'm a republican and came to the rules committee last night and offered five amendments. i think they were reasonable. i think they were reasonable enough to be debated and for us to vote on them. all five were a block. they're blocking members of their own party. that's how they run this place. and you know, a democrat came up with an alternative. good. a good idea. i mean, you know, you may not support it, but people like me thought it was a better way to approach this than what the way the bill was written. and that was too everything is blocked everything is blocked.

i mean, i think they're being blocked because my friends are afraid. they might prevail. and by the way, all the players associations against the score act the way it is currently written. every single one of them. i mean, you know, this year alone, republicans have issued. 86 close rules, 86. that puts them on track to obliterate their previous record of the most closed rules in a single congress. that's 86 times this chamber was kept from even considering amendments to approve bills. no debate, no votes, nothing. i mean, is that what an authority, a dictatorship is like? republicans have blocked nearly eight out of every ten amendments submitted to the rules committee. and get this that's 2700 amendments gone. i'm tossed out by this leadership. they have blocked 60% of bipartisan in amendments, most of their own party's amendments

and more than 90% of democratic amendments are apparently the only ideas. welcome in this congress are the ones written by special interests, are the ones that donald trump personally signs off on. now, we used to debate in this chamber. we used to vote on amendments on the floor. members had voice legislation wasn't cooked up in the speaker's office and rammed through with no chance to fix it. but here we are. republicans have made fewer amendments in order at this point in the year than any congress going back a decade by decimating debate, house republicans have turned themselves into a rubber stamp. trump and they'll track giveaways to the wealthy and the well-connected. but they will block amendments that would protect care for millions or unreal regular economy for working people. i mean, the real scandal here is that we can do something to

control the rising costs of health care. and we have been begging, by the way, not just democrats, some republicans have to for them to at least just put something on the floor that we can debate and vote on to help alleviate the terrible burden that's about to fall on. millions and millions of families in this country. and the answer is we have we can't do it. they won't do it. they do it. you know, you want so you want to debate the rule. this rule is pathetic. six six, completely closed rule rules, six completely different bills. you know, congress is supposed to work for the american people. i think my republican have forgotten that. mr. speaker, i yield two and a half minutes to the gentlewoman from new mexico. ms. gentleman yields, a young woman is recognized here. thank you, mr. speaker. it's always instructive to come down here to the floor and listen to the debate i think it

speaks for itself. but rise today in opposition to the bills that are before us and in strong defense of the department of education, our students and kids across america as a public school student myself, i can say unequivocally these bills are fundamentally unserious and designed to distract from the that the trump administration is currently dismantling the department of education right before our very eyes. they've laid off, thousands of employees shuttered offices, carved up programs, and transfer them to other agencies. d class educators from getting student loans, threatened schools and universities and given their friends contract cuts to not only rewrite education tional curricula, but to even rewrite american history itself. so let me remind my colleagues, this is the agency that was born out of the civil rights, the agency that ensures kids

disabilities have opportunity these and ensures that all kids, no matter who they are or where they live, have access to education. because before the department of education, millions of children all across this country denied access to schools and educational opportunities, federal programs were duplicative, wasteful and states yes, states regular violated the basic civil rights of students. so if our colleagues want to stand with students, you want to stand with schools and you want to stand with educators, then we should be fighting to protect our schools, fighting to protect them from a diminished nation that is trying to dismantle education as we speak. you should be fighting to address housing, food, health care and, fixing our broken economy. which is why, mr. speaker. i am here to stand today to oppose these bills and to stand with every public school and

every kid across america who is fighting for a fair shot because that's what we were elected to do. and with that i yield back and let yields. to the gentleman from virginia recognize. wow, i'm going to talk about the rule. that's what i'm supposed talk about. and i will i will see to my colleague, the ranking member, the rules committee that it's absolutely a fair point of debate to bring up the number of closed rules. but he does so without providing all the context. but when accounting for closed rules in the rules package carries in bills which no amendments less than 35%, this is this congress, less than 35% of closed rules have been at the discretion of the rules committee. now, i know the member will also say there was no formal deadline

or call for amendments, but don't be misled, mr. speaker. he knows all too well that when he was chairman of the committee, the committee did not always provide a formula deadline every week when they ran the show either. now, it's true that this bill this rule has six closed measures and. amendments were but should be that the amendments were only submitted on three of the six. this means of the six bills, only three were closed at the discretion of. the committee. my friend, the gentleman from massachusetts. may also recall that members can amendments and the rules committee may make them in order whether there's a formal deadline to submit them or not. this is a practice that both

republicans, democrats have employed. now, mr. speaker. sometimes we get down here and we get all riled up. been there, done that. i've been riled up myself before, but i find it fascinating from a historical context that my colleague said, this is what it looks like when you have closed rules. this is what it looks. in an authoritarian dictatorship. now, i know that the words authoritarian dictatorship must poll well because the court, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle consider, certainly, mr. speaker, they're consistently throwing it out there. but here's what's so fascinating in and far terry and dictate hardship. you don't get to claim that something the majority is doing is like an old forgery because you would be banned from such things. you would not be allowed to say such things. you would not be allowed to have your time to debate the rule.

and then the bills. all of that would go by the wayside. that's not happened here. now we can argue and on some points i might even agree with my colleague from massachusetts in the general of house floor, i might even be willing to go further than him on some issues because i'd like to see us reform a lot of the things we do around here. but we are nowhere near his so-called or authoritarian dictatorship. from a historical perspective, and for those of us who study those movements throughout history, i would submit, mr. speaker, that even say that is damaging to this great republic known throughout the world as the beacon of freedom and known as the united states of america.

i reserve reserve judgment. massachusetts recognized it. mr. speaker, that's a lot of words to defend. the most close congress in history. yeah, and i have and i say this place is starting to look like an authoritarian dictatorship because is what happens in authoritarian people don't get an opportunity to be able to offer amendments or change bills or change legislation. it's take it or leave it. i mean, i, i mean, people are silenced all the time and the general is trying to defend this process. talk to the republican member who came to the rules and offered five amendment. all of them germane. you know all of them designed to improve the so-called score act. and he was denied not one, not two, all can't do it. and by the way, i will say again that when the gentleman says that all people didn't offer amendments, all bills.

let me just say, i think people are getting to understand what's going on here. my republican friends don't even ask for amendments anymore. they don't give people time to write them. you know, they basically kind of knows that the system is rigged and take it or leave it. people have had it. i mean, every single member here, you know, has i'd is that maybe could improve some of this legislation. but the whole system is rigged in a way that you got to take or leave it. this is not the way the house representatives should be run. you know, and there are a whole bunch of other issues that we should be dealing with. you know, mr. speaker, on friday, the washington post reported an egregious abuse of power by the secretary of defense. you know, back in september in order was reportedly carried out to all remaining survivor is on a suspected drug trafficking boat sailing through the caribbean. pete hegseth, who now calls himself secretary of war, issued an order to, quote, kill

everybody unquote, who survived the first strike, kill everybody. those are the alleged words from the leader of our defense department. just to be clear. killing defenseless people regardless of whether they had been engaged in armed conflict, is a war crime. plain and simple, the administration is trying to brainwash the american people into thinking that cruelty. and murder and war crimes are normal. well, i have news for the trump administration. this is not normal. even if even if we were war attacking survivors of an airstrike, whether or not they pose a threat to, the united states is a war crime. it is unconscionable. it is unconscionable. act of aggression. it violates the defenses guidelines. u.s. law and international norms and laws and even president trump is trying to distance himself from this unlawful attack, saying he, quote, wouldn't have wanted that. not a second strike, end quote. let me be clear, secretary

hegseth has blatantly carried out illegal acts of violence. and right now, he's trying to convince the american people that these actions. okay. mr. speaker, the american people know better and they deserve better. and by the way, in case anybody tuned in, the president's little press conference before we gathered here today, he said the issue of affordability is a hoax. it's scam. he said, i mean, really, anybody who's watching these proceedings, do you really think the issue of affordability is a scam? i mean, prices are higher than ever. i mean, people are paying more could be paying more for their health care because of the inaction of republicans in the house and the senate in this white house. they're going to be paying so much. many of them are going to drop their health insurance. and he says that the affordable issue of affordability is a scam, is a hoax is not real.

mean, come on. come on. and i would urge my republican colleagues, you know, stand up for your constituents. i mean do right thing say no to these closed processes that don't allow even used to be able to offer amendments and stand up policies that are going to make life easier for all people in this country. i reserve my time or. members. i'll remind, to address the remarks of the chair. gentleman from virginia is recognized. mr. speaker, my colleague from massachusetts, i agree on one thing in his comments killing defenseless people is wrong and i don't know whether that happened or not. but as he knows or ought to know, mr. speaker, both the

senate and the armed services committee in the house are looking into these allegations. but again, let me unequipped clearly state that i agree killing of defenseless people is wrong. let's talk about affordability. i do agree that affordability, health care is an issue. it's a complex issue. it's not in any of the bills that we're dealing with today. and that's his complaint is, is that there ought to be something in there. but let me remind folks how we got here. we got here with a bill that came out of the speaker's office. speaker pelosi's office called the affordable act obamacare. it was going to make everybody's world much better. now, it did take care of preexisting conditions. and it's something that republicans and i wasn't here then. but republicans should have fixed. they should have fixed that. but other than that, it did not make it. it did not make health care

affordable. and, in fact, the biggest complaint that my colleagues have had throughout the course of the last few weeks has been about the enhanced premium tax was a temporary program that they said would end in december of 2025. and now they claim nobody can afford it without this temporary program that was brought in because of covid. nobody can afford insurance in the exchanges. they have, in fact admitted that health care costs and health insurance costs in this country are a problem because of obamacare. now, that said, the speaker, we've talked about everything i about maybe getting up here and give a speech on the d day national memorial. i mean, people are talking about everything has nothing to do with this rule. i believe that have exhausted all of my comments that are directly related to the rule. so i am prepared at the

appropriate time to close. but if we keep bringing up new issues, i may feel compelled to respond. but if we're just talking about the rule that deals with these six, six bills that we're considering this week, then i am prepared to close. and with that, i reserve. thank you, mr. chairman. and reserves. gentleman is recognized. mr. speaker, i got to tell you, i love my republican or 209 the resolution is adopted. without objection, a motion ado. without objection, the motion to reconsider is laid on the table.

the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from texas, mr. williams, seek recognition. mr. williams: pursuant to resolution 916, i call up h.r. 2965 and ask for its immediate consideration in the house. the speaker pro tempore: the clerk will report the title of the bill. the clerk: union calendar number 82, h.r. 2965, a bill to require

the administrator of the small business administration to ensure the small business regulatory budget for small business concern in a fiscal year is not greater than zero and for other purposes. the speaker pro tempore: pursuan t to house resolution 916, the amendment in the nature of a substitute recommended by the committee on small business printed in the bill is adopted and the bill as amended is considered read. the bill as amended shall be debatable one hour equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the small business committee or their designees. mr. williams and the gentlewoman from new york, ms. velazquez each will control 30 minutes. the chair recognizes the gentleman from texas, mr. williams. mr. williams: thank you, mr. speaker. i ask unanimous consent that all members have five legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and submit extraneous materials on the bill under consideration. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. mr. williams: thank you, mr. speaker. i yield myself such time as i may consume. the speaker pro tempore: the

gentleman is recognized. mr. williams: thank you. i rise today in strong support of h.r. 2965, the small business regulatory reduction act of 2025 introduced by my friend, beth van duyne from the great state of texas. throughout countless democratic administrations, we've seen overregulation suffocate small business. the biden-harris administration alone imposed regulatory costs to $1.8 trillion on businesses in just four years. the committee on small business has heard testimony from hundreds of small business owners from across the country who repeatedly tell us that excessive regulation is stifling their operations and undermining their bottom line. so to revitalize the american dream, big government, one size fits all mandates, must stop. the trump administration fully recognizings its challenge and has taken aggressive action to give small businesses the relief they deserve. in president trump's second term the republicans have put an end

to regulations through c.r.a.'s and carry out a deregulatory agenda. we have reduced 50 million pages of paperwork burdens. i am proud to advance this bill unleashing prosperity through deregulation. this straightforward bill would require the s.b.a. to operate under a regulatory budget of zero, meaning if regulations are posed, an outdated regulation must be repealed. this bill would require the s.b.a. to provide annual reports on the true costs of small business imposed by government regulations. in this seemingly simple requirement, it will have a major impact by bringing transparency and bureaucracy through federal government actions each year and end the true burden of those actions. the transparency majors in this bill are made to expose the harm done to family owned businesses across the united states. with that i urge my colleagues to vote yes on h.r. 2965.

and i reserve the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from texas reserves. the gentlewoman from new york is recognized. ms. velazquez thank you, mr. speaker. i yield myself as much time as i may consume. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlelady is recognized. ms. velazquez: i rise in opposition to h.r. 2965, the small business regulatory reduction act. let me begin by stating that i wish we were here to talk about bills to help small businesses grow or policies that address challenges that they're facing today, like tariffs, the costs of groceries and health care. instead, we're talking about an unworkable regulatory budget. to be clear, small businesses are not talking about regulations. it ranks near the bottom of that list. inflation, tariffs, and finding

good employees are some of the top challenges facing small businesses. take a walk down a main street, and you will hear the same concern from small business owners up and down the block, the uncertainty and rising costs tied to trump's tariffs are crushing their small businesses, plain and simple. we should be working together on issues that matter, lowering costs for small businesses. instead, we are considering two regulatory bills that will not help them one iota while real problems go unaddressed. h.r. 2965 may sound good on the surface but it will have the practical effect of limiting the s.b.a. from issuing any rules,

even if the benefits outweigh the costs. s.b.a. needs to issue regulations to update programs, issue disaster regulations, and even reduce record keeping requirements. that is good government practice. the majority fails to realize that agencies may be able to estimate the cost of a regulation, but they do not have the hard data on the costs that are imposed. this bill will require the s.b.a. to make assumptions that could turn out to be incorrect. there's nothing in the bill that clarifies how the agency is to implement a regulatory budget and therefore is impractical. finally, the bill does not include an exception for national emergencies, meaning that if this bill had been

enacted before the pandemic, small businesses across the country might not have received p.p.p. assistance in a timely manner, if they receive it at all. for this reason, i oppose the small business regulatory reduction act, and i urge my colleagues to oppose it. i reserve the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman reserves. the gentleman from texas is recognized. mr. williams: thank you, mr. speaker. i yield now to representative van duyne from the great state of texas, such time as she may consume. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman is recognized. ms. van duyne: thanks very much, mr. speaker, and i thank the gentleman for yielding. every day small business owners serve as their own accountants while still handling day-to-day operations of their enterprises, meaning they work extra hours or hire extra assistance just to keep up and bear the burden of complying with local, state, and federal regulations. to say we're not going to save

money and not help small businesses by saving money by cutting regulation is an absolute lie. working hard has always been the standard for small business owners but what the biden-harris administration created $1.8 trillion in additional regulatory costs for businesses across the country in just four years. small business owners felt the brunt of that pain. h. h.r. 2965 supports the trump administration's deregulatory agenda by giving small businesses the relief they need to grow and succeed no matter what industry they're in. put simply, this bill aims to ensure any new rule making by the small business administration is at no cost to small businesses, no cost, not the $1.8 trillion, but no costs. the very agency that helps small businesses start, grow, and build cannot also be the one that increases their financial and regulatory burden. in addition, h.r. 2965 requires the s.b.a. office of advocacy to

report to congress on the total cost of all federal regulations impacting small businesses. and unlike what we just heard from the other side of the aisle, to be clear, this bill does not prevent agencies from issuing new regulations. but rather, it requires them to eliminate those that are duplicative, outdated, or don't reflect the intent of the law. the p.p.p. was a program that was established by congress. it was not a regulation established by the s.b.a., so totally irrelevant. in doing so, it creates a systemic culture of regulatory discipline where agencies will have to consistently review regulations with scrutiny. small businesses make up 99.9% of businesses in america, and they remain the key source of economic prosperity across all our districts. h.r. 2965 moves the needle towards empowering small businesses by reducing red tape. and to say that doesn't save money to small businesses, then

obviously you've never been a small business owner. if you want america to succeed, it starts on main street and i urge my colleagues to support me in supporting the small business regulatory destruction act of 2025. mr. williams: i reserve. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman reserves. the gentlewoman from texas. ms. velazquez: i reserve. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized. mr. williams: i give the time to as much time as he may consumer to my colleague. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized. >> thank you for your leadership. i rise today in strong support of h.r. 2965, the small business regulatory reduction act of 2025. mr. alford: you know, for four long years under the previous administration, america's small businesses, the backbone of our economy and the heart of

missouri's fourth congressional district, have been smothered, smothered by an onslaught of overreaching federal regulations that have made goods less affordable in the united states of america. under the biden-harris administration, small businesses were hit with an unprecedented $1.8 trillion, not billion, but $1.8 trillion in new regulatory costs while inflation soared over 20%. where cost goes, mr. speaker. main street cannot survive. americans are demanding affordability and this is a good step in that direction. this bill, championed by my colleague, puts a stop to it. it requires the small business administration to report on the regulatory costs imposed by

other federal agencies on small businesses. transparency, it's all about transparency. it's going to show the american people exactly where the democrat blue tape is strangling growth in america. this legislation supports president trump's regulatory right-sizing agenda and gives our job creators the relief they desperately need to start, grow and succeed once again. mr. speaker, you want to make things more affordable in america? you want to cut down on overregulation? this is the bill to do it. let's all stand with america and our small businesses and our entrepreneurs, our family-owned businesses and support h.r. 2965. thank you, and i yield back. mr. williams: reserve. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman reserves. the gentlewoman from new york is

recognized. ms. velazquez: i am ready to close if the chairman doesn't have any other speakers. mr. williams: we have one more speaker. ms. velazquez: i reserve. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from texas. mr. williams: i yield to the gentleman from kansas such time as he may consume. mrs.schmidt: -- >> i rise in strong support of h.r. 2965 the small business regulatory reduction act of 2025. i would join my remarks on my colleagues who have advocated for the bill and back up and talk about regulatory burden and how this bill is an important step in dealing with a much larger problem. the chart on my right shows the number of the pages in the federal register, today there

are almost 200,000 pages. the number of rules and regulations written by unelected federal bureaucrats, the people in the real world that we represent ept must comply with has quadrupled, quadrupled. and i will guarantee you, mr. speaker, is a silent tax increase on every american and every small business in all of our states. the estimated regulatory compliance costs for businesses in the united states is about $3 trillion per year. and as has been mentioned, $12.8 trillion was added in the prior administration. the entire federal budget is about $7 trillion per year. you know what the difference is between a tax and a regulatory command, mr. speaker? with a tax, the federal government says to, in this case

a small business owner, give me your money and we'll spend it what we decide. and we'll take your money and spend it on the priorities that we decide. not on hiring more people, not on growing and expanding and not giving charitable support in our communities and not doing the things that small businesses do, but as people in this town have decided. that's what's at stake here. and that's why we have to take this action. mr. speaker, i urge passage of this measure because it is one step toward peaking that mountain of regulation and making small business fiscal year to do what they do and making life more affordable to the people i represent that buy and sell on main street each and every day. i yield back. mr. williams: reserve. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman from new york is

recognized. ms. velazquez: i am ready close. mr. speaker, let me close with this, trump's tariffs, not regulations, are crushing small businesses. i know that it's painful for the other side of the aisle to discuss or even debate the issue of tariffs and how it's negatively impacting small businesses. the president of the united states said that on day one, he will lower the cost. and yet, here we are. witnesses have testified before our committee that the cost of tariffs are harming their small

businesses. the uncertainty resulting from the on again off-again pronouncement by trump has halted investment and expansion of small businesses. and it has hindered basic business decisions like when to put in an order or how to plan for the holiday season. i know they don't want to talk about tariffs. but instead we are debating these two bills. the american action forum estimates that trump's tariffs are costing small businesses $85 billion a year. and that is not including the cost of navigating the uncertain environment or complying with the tariffs themselves. the tariffs disproportionately

harm small firms which operate on thinner margins and have virtually no buying power. yet, we are focused today on a regulatory budget that is unworkable. the bill has no exceptions for national emergencies. let's look back to 2020. s.b.a. issued scores of rules to provide relief to help small businesses during the pandemic. so the author of the bill is incorrect when she claims that s.b.a. didn't issue regulation. to make sure that people accessing the money from p.p.p. will not commit crime, abuse or

prod. the program imposed significant compliance on small businesses. we can attest to the p.p.p. due to the fact that the p.p.p. helped millions of small businesses stay afloat that otherwise would have gone out of business. clearly the benefits of those regulations are waived -- outweighed the cost. had a budget area been in place it would have been challenging for s.b.a. to cut existing regulatory programs to offset the costs of the paycheck protection program. many of them cut them to free up funds to p.f.p. would have

compromised the integrity of the program. these funds needed to be disbursed. it would have delayed or reduced aid to small businesses. the bottom line is this bill will harm small businesses rather than help them particularly in a crisis. i urge my colleagues to oppose this bill and i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman yields. the gentleman from texas. mr. williams: h.r. 2965 will make sure that costs of new s.b.a. rulemaking is at zero to ensure necessary regulations are in place. we must support main street. i urge my colleagues to vote in favor of this legislation. and i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the alyields. all time for debate has expired. pursuant to house resolution

916, the previous question is ordered on the bill as amended. question is on engrossment and third reading of the bill. those in favor, say aye. those opposed, no. the ayes have it. third reading. the clerk: a bill to require the administrator of the small business administration to ensure that the small business budget for a small business concern in a fiscal year is not greater than zero and for other purposes. the speaker pro tempore: the question is on passage of the bill. those in favor, say aye. those opposed, no. in the opinion of the chair, the ayes have it. and the bill is passed. ms. velazquez: mr. speaker, i ask for the yeas and nays. the speaker pro tempore: the yeas and nays are requested. those favoring a vote by the yeas and nays will rise. a sufficient number having arisen having risen, the yeas and nays are ordered pursuant to clause 8, rule 20, further proceedings on this question will be postponed. for what purpose does the gentleman from texas, mr. williams, seek recognition?

mr. williams: pursuant to house resolution 916 i call up h.r. 4305 and ask for its immediate consideration. the clerk: union calendar 4 # 3, a bill to direct the chief counsel for advocacy of the small business administration to establish a red tape hotline to receive notification of burdensome agency rules and for other purposes. pursuant to house resolution 916 the amendment in the nature of the substitute recommended by the committee of the small business is adopted and the bill as amended is considered read. the p bill shall be debatable equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking member on small business. the gentleman from texas, mr. williams and the gentlewoman from new york, ms. velazquez, each will control 30 minutes. the chair recognizes the gentleman from texas. mr. williams: i ask unanimous

consent that all members may have revise and extend their materials on the bill under consideration. the speaker pro tempore: without objection mr. williams: i yield myself such time as i may consume. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized mr. williams: i rise? strong port of the dullp red tape act. mr. speaker, entrepreneurs across america are driving our economic growth but too often are forced to fight the layers. red tape to keep their doors open and every day small businesses deal with unfair regulations that make it harder to hire, grow and innovate. the s.b.a. office of advocacy has served as a voice for small business across the country. it encourages small business success through the government's legislative, regulatory and administrative process. when it comes to regulatory costs, advocacy represents the interests of small business at

the federal level. they launched the red tape hotline, a necessary resource that gives small businesses a direct real-time way to report burdensome regulations. the red tape hotline empowers small business owners to speak up and hold federal agencies accountable for the red tape that is crushing their day-to-day operations. it was unleashing. the dump red act codifies his executive order and ensures that small businesses have a reliable channel to be heard. this bill strengthens advocacy's ability to congress to ensure we have the real world data to push for more effective regulatory policy. while the public can submit comments to opened rules, this red tape hotline provides small businesses the opportunity to provide feedback on the true burden of compliance.

this bill requires to submit an annual report to scong and summarizing the notifications received through the hotline. by strengthening this process, congress will receive a clear picture of how federal regulations affect different types of businesses nationwide. congress is acting on real world information. some of my colleagues on the other side may argue that the hotline improperly focuses on burdensome regulations rather than collecting positive feedback. the purpose is to identify obstacles and regulations that do not require intervention. small businesses are not asking us to preserve the status quo but eliminate the barriers. by isolating problematic rules we we in congress need to focus time and resources where they are needed most while preserving the regulations that work.

this strengthens pro-job pro-innovation economy that small businesses are accountable to the needs of main street. vote yes on h.r. 4305. i reserve the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman from new york is recognized. ms. velazquez: i yield myself such time as i may consume. mr. speaker, i rise in opposition to h.r. 4305, destroying unnecessary misaligned prohibited red tape act or dump. . . .. it is not something we need.

it already exists. establishing another creates duplication and drains s.b.a. resources. isn't this contrary to everything the republicans and administration and the recently dissolved doge effort tried to prevent, duplicity? more concerning, the proposal hasn't been vetted properly. in the first 100-day report, advocacy indicated there were 96 small business submissions and more recently reported there were 301 submissions. yet, despite repeated requests for more information, advocacy has failed to provide any specific information about this request to the committee, democrats and republicans. we have no way of knowing if the submissions are related to

rules. they could have easily been about tariffs or unpaid invoices to contractors. and to the best of my knowledge, advocacy has not weighed in with the administration which raises concern over their lack of independence from the administration. turning to the specifics, the bill lacks adequate reporting mechanisms to identify who is making the submissions, leaving it vulnerable to abuse and the inability to differentiate between a small business, trade opposition, or law firm. and the bill focuses on the costs of regulations, not the benefits, which rightly outweighs the costs. for these reasons, i oppose the bill. and it is important to note, i said to my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, if we

can get the information from advocacy as to what small businesses are actually submitting and the mechanics of the hotline to ensure independence, i will be willing to work with them. instead, the bill is being rammed through the house to score political points. i urge my colleagues to oppose the bill and focus on real solutions to lift up small businesses during this troubling economic time. i reserve the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman reserves. the gentleman from texas is recognized. mr. williams: thank you, mr. speaker. i yield to representative wied of the great state of wisconsin as much time as he may consume. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized. mr. wied: thank you, mr. speaker. i rise in support of my bill, h.r. 4305, the destroying unnecessary misaligned and prohibitive red tape act also known as the dump red tape act.

for far too long, america's small businesseses have been buried under costly regulations, after suffering through four years of regulatory onslaught by the biden administration, totaling nearly $1.8 trillion in new costs in requiring an additional 360 million hours to comply with these regulations, small businesses are desperate for regulatory relief. a report published last december by the u.s. chamber of commerce found that over half of small business owners view the cost of complying with regulations as a barrier to growth. small businesses are forced to navigate complex environmental reporting requirements, overtime, and wage rules that change from one administration to the next. and lengthy permitting processes that can delay construction projects for months or even years. family-owned shops face costly data privacy mandates designed

for multinational corporations while contractors struggle with ever shifting osha paperwork requirements that eat up their time better spent on the job site. earlier this year, the small business administration created the red tape hotline under its office of advocacy. this hotline gives small businesses a seat at the table to highlight the prohibitive red tape regulations from across federal agencies that hurt their ability to grow and to compete. my bill takes that progress further. it codifies the hotline into law and requires annual reports to congress. so that we know exactly which rules are holding back growth and what steps are being taken to fix them. i am pleased that my bill earned the endorsement of the u.s. chamber of commerce and associated builders and contractors who recognized the need for a direct line of communication to the s.b.a. for small businesses. the dump red tape act is a

commonsense way to gather input directly from the people most harmed by overregulation to allow congress to take meaningful action. i urge all of my colleagues to support this important piece of legislation and stand with america's small businesses. mr. speaker, i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back. mr. williams: i reserve my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman reserves the balance of his time. the gentleman is recognized -- the gentlelady is recognized. ms. velazquez: i yield time to mr. walkinshaw. mr. walkinshaw: this hotline with an anonymous in box the ranking member articulated that we know virtually nothing about will do nothing to help small businesses. but while the majority is busy claiming to fight bureaucracy by

creating new bureaucracy, they're ignoring the real crisis that small businesses are begging us to address, the looming lapse of the enhanced premium tax credits. i know this because i've met with small business owners in my district like rachel rosner who is the owner of the elden tea shot from reston, not far from here. it's a five-person business that's exactly the kind of main street business that the majority claims to champion. as she told me, rachel's business depends on the tax credits, and her tea shop is not an exception, it's the norm. nearly half of all adults with a.c.a. marketplace coverage are small business owners, small business employees, or self-employed. and in many cases, the affordable care act and the enhanced premium tax credits have given them the freedom to start their small business, but the republican attacks on health

care will force small businesses to close. nationally, 22 million americans, including millions of small business owners, will see premium hikes averaging 114%. some of their premiums will double, triple, or even quadruple. these are middle class workers. these are employees of small businesses. these are small business owners, the people keeping our local economies alive. the republicans keep telling us they're the party of entrepreneurs but you can't be the party of entrepreneurs while you're driving up their health care costs and driving them out of business. i urge my colleagues to oppose this bill and i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman reserves. the gentleman from texas is recognized. mr. williams: thank you, mr. speaker. at this time i yield to ms. hageman from the great state of wyoming, as much time as she may consume.

the speaker pro tempore: the gentlelady is recognized. ms. hageman: thank you. thank you, mr. speaker. i rise in strong support of the dump red tape act and want to thank representative wied for his leadership on this crucial deregulatory initiative. in addition to regulations that are promulgated pursuant to the administrate straightive procedure -- administrative procedures act, there exists a vast scope of regulatory documents that impact small businesses. these are guidance documents, memoranda, bulletins, circulars, letters, and more. what wayne cruz, a fellow in the regulatory studies at the competitive enterprise institute has more appropriately referred to as regulatory dark matter. only rules that are adopted pursuant to the a.p.a. actually carry the force of law, yet in practice, agencies seek to skew the intent of congressional law and impose other requirements through this regulatory dark matter, thereby avoiding compliance with the a.p.a. requirements. identifying the full scope of

the regulatory state as it exists through this dark matter is not only a challenge for congress and the agencies themselves but for our small weisss as well. under -- small businesses as well. under the first trump administration, agencies cataloged or attempted to catalog all these various guidance documents, but as soon as he took office, president biden stripped away this essential transparency measure in the early days. the reality is that reforming the regulatory state begins with identifying its true magnitude and that it is an exercise which congress simply cannot do alone. the deregulatory agenda president trump instituted which resulted in the creation of the s.b.a. office of advocacy's red tape hotline captures this reality. it does so by creating a forum by which to partner with the small businesses of america who can identify sector-specific regulations that impose undue regulatory compliance,

challenges, and costs. by voting for the dump red tape act, we can codify this hotline and the essential role that it plays and make permanent this partnership with america's small businesses in a much-needed deregulatory effort. federal regulations' total costs, compliance costs, and economic effects are at least $2.155 trillion, which equates to over $16,000 in annual hidden regulatory costs to the american taxpayer. if we truly care about affordability about the economy, about small businesses and their consumers, then there is no better policy than deregulation, and this bill will further empower the s.b.a. office of advocacy in coordination with the small businesses it represents. thank you again to representative wied and chairman williams for their leadership on this important issue. and i urge my colleagues to vote in favor. with that i yield.

the speaker pro tempore: the gentlelady yields back. mr. williams: reserve. the speaker pro tempore: the jam from texas reserves. the gentlewoman from new york. ms. velazquez: i reserve. mr. williams: i yield to mr. schmitt from the great state of kansas. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized. mr. schmitt: it's my pleasure to rise in support of the dump red tape act. i'm back again on this subject that shows the growth and number of pages in the federal register and where the pages are codified and you go to look them up. the number of pages has quadrupled in my lifetime. let me just offer a couple thoughts on how this bill is, in my view, important for small businesses to get at that problem of the creeping weight of federal overregulation.

mr. schmidt: in my district, the second district of kansas, the eastern part of the state, it's more or less 80% of the small businesses of the businesses in the state which employ 20 or fewer people. 80% of them are really small businesses. you're about 93% if you go under 500 employees. but for a lot of us, it sounds like a big number in my part of the world. under 20 employees, that's a small business. 80%. those are the main street businesses we're talking about. i've talked with a lot of people that own those businesses and work in those businesses and they're all active in their communities they support, anywhere from the local sports team and the local charity and the local school's foundation. that's what they're focused on, making a living, making their business work, whatever it is they do, providing professional services, other services, retail items, manufacturing items, that's what they're focused on. they're not focused on this. they don't have an army of compliance attorneys and

compliance consultants to help them figure out what's in these 200,000 pages of federal regulation and what that means for how they conduct their behavior in their communities each and every day. so how do we figure out how to start? and i think this bill is a very commonsense answer. ask the people who are most affected. the whole point of the red tape hotline that president trump set up and that this bill codifies and makes permanent is to allow the people in the small business world who are affected by regulatory decisions made in this town, our nation's capital, to tell somebody who has the ability to aggregate something about it and bring it to lawmakers, that's where you need to focus. this is preventing me from adding more employees and having a little more liquidity so maybe i can redo the storefront on

main street or give a little more to the local charitable cause or maybe my family will be a little bit more comfortable going into the holidays. ask the people affected. listen to their voices. that's what this bill does. and it makes sure we put in place a simple structure that is permanent so that the vagaries of this town don't change things on main street. mr. speaker, i strongly support this measure. it is just common sense. and i yield back. .. ms. velazquez: i am prepared to close if the gentleman doesn't have any other speakers. mr. williams: we are prepared to close. ms. velazquez: thank you, mr. speaker. small businesses are being crushed by the trump tariffs and advocacy through the best of my knowledge has not conveyed their

concerns to the white house. advocacy is supposed to be an independent office within the s.b.a. and it is responsible for advancing the views and concerns of small businesses before congress, the white house, federal agencies, the federal courts and state and local policy makers but it has done nothing on tariffs. that is particularly troubling to me and equally troubling to my friends on the other side of the aisle. instead of helping small businesses that are being crushed by the trump tariffs the majority is focused on focusing on another regulatory hotline inthough that is one. this is a hotline of advocacy is duplicative and unnecessary and waste of taxpayers' dollars.

the system is clearly broken. for years, the chairman and ranking member of the small business committee has had a strong tradition of working together to find common ground. that cooperation was essential in helping entrepreneurs grow their small businesses. it is exactly what we are losing now. we are wasting valuable time today on bills that are unnecessary, divisive and a waste of taxpayer dollars. unfortunately, my republican colleagues are focused on regulatory bills that will not help small businesses one i oatha while allowing the authorization of critical vital counseling and training programs to lapse. it doesn't make sense.

small businesses deserve substance. i urge my colleagues to oppose this bill and i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman yields and the gentleman from texas is recognized. mr. williams: there is no hotline that exists for small business. this bill will fix that problem and provide an avenue for small business to engage in advocacy. this bill passed out of the committee on a bipartisan basis. as chairman i am committed to giving the information to support main street and this will come as an annual report to congress. we will work with advocacy to understand p concerns of small business across the country. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: all time for debate has expired. the previous question is ordered on the bill as amended. the question is on engrossment and third reading of the bill. those in favor, say aye. those

opposed, no. the ayes have it, third reading. the clerk: a bill to direct the chief counsel of the small business administration to accomplish a red hotline to receive notification of overly burdensome rules and for other purposes. the speaker pro tempore: the question is on the passage of the bill. those in favor, say aye. those opposed, no. the ayes have it. the bill is passed -- ms. velazquez: mr. speaker, i ask for the yeas and nays. the speaker pro tempore: the yeas and nays are requested. those favoring a vote by the yeas and nays will rise. a sufficient number having arisen, yeas and nays are ordered pursuant to clause 8, rule 20, further proceedings on this question will be postponed. the chair will entertain requests for one-minute speeches. for what purpose does the gentlewoman from california seek recognition? >> mr. speaker, i ask unanimous consent to address the house for

one minute and revise and extend my remarks. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlelady is recognized. ms. pelosi: mr. speaker, i rise today with deep concern of the president's outrageous and pardon of juan hernandez a jury convicted of trafficking tons of cocaine into the united states and corrupting his own government in the process. i saw this firsthand when i brought a bipartisan delegation to honduras and because he is, was a thug. this is not a murder case or close call but a conviction for crimes that devastated american families and fueled violence and instability abroad and president trump used one of the most powerful powers of the presidency to wipe it all out. this is so hypocritical as he is bombing small bots that he says

are full of drugs. but if he is doing that, why would he pardon a thug. he was once boasted together they would shove up the drugs of the drugs of the noses. what does this send it to law enforcement officer riskerring everything. this disgraceful pardon should be met with condemnation as affront our rule of law and democracy those who do not join in that condemnation are either pro-crime or do not care another reminder that the american people must be vigilant. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: does the gentlelady have a motion? ms. pelosi: i move the house do now adjourn.

those in favor, say aye. those opposed, no. the ayes have it. the motion is adopted. accordingly the house stands